


Sic Semper

by Carmilla



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, M/M, Villain Character Death, gratuitous Latin, terrible pillow talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 07:46:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5367041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmilla/pseuds/Carmilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thus always to tyrants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sic Semper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sheeana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheeana/gifts).



This is without a doubt the stupidest thing Arcade's ever done his whole damn life.

He's fizzing under his skin, little crackles of energy racing back and forth. He's weirdly, accutely aware of every tendon and joint in his hands and he flexes them compulsively, not sure that he could stop if he tried. Like the man at the beginning of that Jack London book, he realises. His body knows it could die – that he _will_ die, very probably, right here, within the next fifteen minutes or so. His body's afraid, and he's not, not at all. Leo's eyes flick across to him, don't look down, not even for a second, and still Arcade can feel where his plasma defender's taped to his thigh like the damn thing just overheated. And Leo's eyes narrow just a bit, and his mouth quirks up just a bit, for all the world like they're little kids about to get away with something. This is the stupidest thing Arcade's ever done his whole life, and he honestly thinks he could _giggle_ right now.

Ah, the things we do for ill-advised lust and a genuine hatred of the evil bastards who rule this world.

(“Just stand real close to me, try to project that we're sleeping together -”

“We _are_ sleeping together.”

“I know, that's what I'm _saying_ , try to be obvious about it. And then when the guard goes to pat you down, smile at him. Be friendly. Flirtatious if you can manage it.

“The Legion may talk a good game about 'love among warriors' but the rank and file, most of them are basically macho idiots, you know? Twenty to one if he thinks you might enjoy it he'll get squeamish about searching you, especially if he's under the impression you're, uh –”

“Your bitch?”

“Well I was gonna go with 'submissive', but yeah, if you like. They're not very nuanced about these things. They'll underestimate you.” That wry, old-soul grin. “If we're really lucky, they'll underestimate us both.”

“And if we're really unlucky, and they fail to be flustered by my manifold charms? Or the gate guard decides it's the perfect excuse to have a really good grope?”

“Well, we send you to be searched first, so if the he does find it I'll be able to take him down pretty easily and then we - improvise, I guess.”

Arcade snorted.

“Improvise. Right.”

Leo rubbed the back of his neck.

“Look, I can take Boone. I will take Boone, if you'd rather. But Boone and I couldn't do this. He'd never pull off the pat down, and he's no kind of shot with a pistol anyway. If I take Boone we have to start firing the minute we get to the gate, and, well, there's a reason we haven't tried that already.”

He danced Caesar's mark over his fingers; it glittered jauntily under the harsh casino lighting.

“With Boone, this gets me through Cottonwood Cove. With you, if we play it right – and I do think we can play it right – it could get me all the way into Caesar's tent. My Ranger friends say it's not heavily guarded.”

Arcade just raised his eyebrows; Leo had the grace to wince a little.

“Caesar and no more than six others, plus two dogs.”

That he didn't dignify with a response at all.

“Alright, yes, I _know_ , but you know how technophobic they all are. It's not like going into a room with seven gunmen. One energy weapon could honestly tip the balance. I'd carry it myself, but, well, I can make a dent barehanded.” And you can't, he didn't say. Meant as politeness, as if it might somehow hurt Arcade's feelings that not everybody is a terrifying one-man superweapon.

“I think I can take most of them. I'm sure I can. But it would make all the difference to have someone to guard my back.”)

Arcade had said yes, then, because he was always going to say yes. It's good of Leo, really, to go to the trouble of talking him round every time, when right from the beginning Arcade's never been able to say no to him.

And so Arcade smiled his best flirt-with-the-murdering-bastard smile, and the gate guard did the quickest possible job of patting him down, and he walked through that camp full of red uniforms and collared, depressed women like it was the most normal thing in the world, and now here he is, standing in Caesar's tent with a concealed weapon strapped to his leg, about to either make history or die trying.

He wishes he could think of a properly apposite quote. 'Funny how things turn out' doesn't quite seem to cut it.

Caesar, as it happens, is not best pleased to see them. _Not half as displeased as he's going to be in a couple of minutes_ , Leo smirks in his head. As he lists all the things Leo's done to royally piss him off over the past few months – taking down the Omertas, defusing the Camp McCarran bomb, overrunning the outpost at Nelson – it's all Arcade can do not to sigh nostalgically. (Alright, he wasn't actually there for that last one, but apparently it was fun.)

“So I ask you,” Caesar finishes up, almost growling now, “why the _fuck_ are you here?”

Leo steps forward. Probably no-one but Arcade notices he's also gone to the right, just a touch, bringing him a crucial half-step closer to one of the guards.

“We came to say 'Ave Caesar'.”

“Ave atque vale,” Arcade adds, their cue, and then he's running left as Leo pulls the knife from his guard's belt, pivots around behind him and slits his throat in one smooth movement, and all hell breaks loose.

Giving himself no time to feel ridiculous, Arcade sticks his hand down his pants and rips the gun out. His skin flares white and hot as the tape pulls loose, and that's going to hurt like _fuck_ when the adrenaline wears off. No time to think about it now. He flicks the safety off and turns back towards the entrance. Dogs first, that was the plan. He lands three shots on one and it drops with barely a whimper. The second explodes towards him, a mass of fur and snarls; he squeezes the trigger without thinking and it disintegrates in mid-air. Lucky hit. The dogs' handlers are converging on Leo now, trying to surround him. Arcade picks one, aims for the middle of his back and empties his clip into him; he barely blinks when the other is knocked to the ground by the bleeding corpse of the guard Leo was fighting. Leo plants a firm kick in the middle of the fallen praetorian's head (when is a concealed weapon not a concealed weapon? When it's a steel toe cap) and whips around, his eyes tracking Caesar.

There's a flicker of movement in Arcade's peripheral vision, somewhere towards the back of the tent. When he turns he thinks for a second that he's imagined it, before he sees the tell-tale waver in a patch of air that's not a patch of air.

A stealth boy. Fantastic. So much for technophobia. He aims for the middle of the flickering mass, doesn't think about his chances of hitting, doesn't think about catching Leo with a shot gone wide, pulls the trigger.

He gets lucky again. The man falls, the stealth field stuttering out of existence around him. Vulpes Inculta, Arcade realises as he takes a step towards him and – deliberately, because it's always a choice – shoots him twice in the head.

He looks up to see Leo dodging Caesar's power fist. He's making it look easy, a boxing match, but his eyes are hard. Those strikes are lethally fast – Arcade's seen a weapon like that splinter a man's skull open with one blow. They're weaving around each other in half circles, pressing and retreating; not worth even thinking about using the gun. Arcade moves towards them. _What are you going to do,_ trip _him?_ asks a voice in his head, and Arcade tells it yes, unless it's got any better ideas, which shuts it up. Before he comes within arm's reach, though, Leo ducks under a vicious right hook and comes up body to body with Caesar, locking his left arm around Caesar's right and driving his knife straight up through the bottom of his jaw. Caesar doesn't even have time to look surprised. Leo jerks the blade free and opens his carotid, but it's a formality; the man's already dead.

Leo lets go. The body crumples to the ground. Absently, he wipes the knife clean on his thigh as his eyes flick around the tent, checking for signs of movement; there aren't any.

The place stinks like a slaughterhouse.

And it comes to Arcade (suddenly, like a revelation, though there should be nothing new about the idea at all) that this hadn't been what he'd signed on for. Not for the obvious reasons – primum non nocere, all that jazz – it's a violent world out there, and he'd known when he agreed to go with Leo that they would end up in situations where they'd have to, well, defend themselves. Maybe even walk into those situations deliberately, sometimes. But he didn't used to believe in _this_. Thinking that you can clean up the world by sticking a knife in the right person is for thugs and idealists; the kind of idealists who are actually just idiots.

But Leo isn't an idiot. Leo's the most well-read man Arcade's ever met who didn't have the benefit of a Followers education, and he's smarter, in real, practical terms, than some actual doctors Arcade's known. And despite being so much more gifted than any one man should be, he doesn't rely on his own opinion. He's on the look-out for other smart people, all the time, so he can hear what they have to say. Leo destroyed the research in Vault 22, even though it had fascinated him, because Keely said it had to be done and Arcade pointed out that Hildern was a fool who shouldn't really be trusted with even the feeble amount of influence he had already. Leo gave power to Freeside when he could have made a serious profit sending it to the Strip instead. Leo had _itched_ to kill Tom Anderson, Arcade saw it, but Leo asked him 'What do you think?' and listened to his answer, and in the end he'd let the man go.

Maybe it's okay that this time Arcade listened and did things Leo's way. Leo _isn't_ an idiot, and maybe, just maybe, what they've done here today will matter.

Inculta has another couple of stealth boys on him, an unexpected bonus – the original plan would have had them waiting for nightfall to make their next move. Leo silently hands one over, and they activate them before he slits open the canvas at the back of the tent just enough for them to crawl through. Quietly, carefully, they walk down the hill to the west, headed for the bunker Leo knows is there. The business of the camp carries on around them, undisturbed.

~

They break for the night some eight hours later. Leo calls the place they stop a safehouse; Arcade would call it a corrugated iron shack that can't keep even the wind out, but what does he know? At least they're miles from the Fort. Miles from anywhere, as far as he can tell. Arcade heats some food over a battered gas burner as Leo makes a brief, coded report to the nearest Ranger station on shortwave radio. They spare a little water to wash the blood and grime off before they eat.

Arcade's exhausted, the kind that's gone through tired and out the other side; the kind that makes his limbs heavy and his thoughts deceptively light and free-floating. He's expecting to sleep the minute he crawls into their bedroll. But Leo drapes an arm over him, warm and heavy, and presses little kisses along the nape of his neck, and he's hit with sudden, bright stab of hunger so fierce that it startles him. He rolls over, threads his fingers through Leo's thick, glossy curls and kisses him hot and hard. Kisses him like he's demanding something; he doesn't even know what.

(Da mi basia mille, deinde centum.)

They rut together in the dark, quiet and intent, moving no more than they have to. Arcade feels tight, like a waterskin stretched to bursting, full of adrenaline and banked fear and things he doesn't have words for at all. He shakes with them, and digs his fingers into Leo's skin too hard, and they trade panting kisses and whimper in the back of their throats. When the dam breaks at last it takes him right out of his body, and it feels like a long time before he comes back to himself, curled around Leo with their legs still tangled up.

“Sic semper tyrannis,” Leo breathes into his clavicle, warmly satisfied. Typical pillow talk from the man – once the needs of the moment are dealt with he's on to the next thing to be thought about. But somehow, this time, Arcade doesn't hear it that way. Instead, two words roll irresistably round his head in Leo's husky nighttime voice, over and over again – sic semper. Like _this_ , always. Like this _always_. _Yes,_ he thinks, happy and warmed and utterly, abjectly terrified.

Leo reclaims his legs and settles his head more comfortably in the crook of Arcade's shoulder.

“I've been meaning to talk to you about that, actually,” and it takes a minute for Arcade to realise that Leo can't be talking about what he was thinking about, no matter how loudly he feels like he was thinking it.  “Killing Caesar helps us in the long term – I don't see the Legion lasting another decade without him – but short term it won't make much difference. Those Securitrons we activated in the bunker, though? They're another story. I mean, you know I hate to tempt fate, so I won't say they're definitely going to turn the tide for us, but they make it likely enough that we need to start thinking seriously about what happens if we win.” 

He props himself up on his elbow, meeting Arcade's eyes.

“The Securitrons make a hell of an army. We can absolutely support an independent New Vegas off the back of them. But it's an army designed to answer to one man, and that won't really do, will it? Whether or not the city trusts me with that kind of power – let alone whether I trust myself with it – it's not sustainable. We're going to need a council, or something. Representatives from the casinos, the Westside collective, the Kings, the Followers – probably even the Garrets and Van Graffs, gods help us. And we're going to need to alter the Securitrons' programming enough to give them real authority, at least when they can reach a majority agreement.” He smiles ruefully. “And I have no idea how on earth we get any of that done; I'm hoping you do, or at least know some people I can talk to about it.”

Arcade doesn't say anything. He feels too much; it chokes him. Leo settles back down.

“Sorry, I don't know why I'm keeping you up with this. It's not a problem for now.” He smiles, yawns a little. (Even the way he _yawns_ is charming, damn the man.) “Probably not even a problem for this year, to be honest. But whatever you think, I want to hear about it. There's nobody I trust more.” And with that astonishingly unqualified statement, he rolls over and drops instantly asleep.

Arcade lies flat on his back, and stares at nothing. Helplessly, inexorably, he thinks about the future he wants; that someday he might have it. He can't squash it down, even knowing that hope is dangerous. The most dangerous thing in the world, apart from love.

“Let those who despise all human things but money, and believe there is no room for great honour or virtue, listen to his story; it will be worth their while,” he tells the darkness softly. He closes his eyes and listens to Leo's slow, even breaths beside him, feeling his warmth. It feels like a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> A quick guide to Arcade's references:
> 
> Sic semper tyrannis - 'thus always to tyrants', the words allegedly spoken by Brutus when he assassinated Caesar and later quoted by John Wilkes Booth and others.
> 
> Like the man at the beginning of that Jack London book - White Fang. The first three chapters are about a man being hunted by a wolfpack, and for my money they're more riveting than the rest of the book put together.
> 
> Ave atque vale - 'Hail and farewell', the last words of Catullus 101. It's a tender mourning poem dedicated to Catullus' brother, who died young. The boys are guilty of a certain amount of irony for using it in this context.
> 
> primum non nocere - 'first do no harm', the Hippocratic Oath.
> 
> Da mi basia mille, deinde centum - 'give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred', Catullus again. This is from number 5, probably his most famous love poem. In it he reminds his lover that life is short, and therefore she should kiss him more :)
> 
> Let those who despise all human things but money, and believe there is no room for great honour or virtue, listen to his story; it will be worth their while - my (slightly mangled for ease of quoting) translation of Livy's History of Rome 3.26.7. It introduces the story of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, a man who was appointed dictator of Rome, resolved a major crisis, and resigned the office within fifteen days to return power to the Senate - twice.


End file.
